Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Abandonment by Oswald Chambers

"Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee… ." Mark 10:28

Our Lord replies in effect, that abandonment is for Himself, and not for what the disciples themselves will get from it. Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it - "I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy." All that is the result of being right with God, but that spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy show room and be able to say - 'This is what God has done for me.'" If we only give up something to God because we want more back, there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God - these things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.

When we come up against the barriers of natural relationship, where is Jesus Christ? Most of us desert Him - "Yes, Lord, I did hear Thy call; but my mother is in the road, my wife, my self-interest, and I can go no further." "Then," Jesus says, "you cannot be My disciple."

The test of abandonment is always over the neck of natural devotion. Go over it, and God's own abandonment will embrace all those you had to hurt in abandoning. Beware of stopping short of abandonment to God. Most of us know abandonment in vision only.

Follow us on twitter as...PilgrimThots

Pilgrim Thoughts is a place dedicated to writings and ponderings for those families and individuals who long to follow and obey our Lord Jesus Christ daily.
We understand as God's children that we must come out from among the cares and traps of this world and be a seperate, peculiar people, zealous of good works. So as we strive to live on this earth as pilgrims and strangers... and as we follow and obey Him, we hope to display the light of our Lord to others who are drowning in darkness.
This blog is the work of a simple family of four and we greatly appreciate you taking time to come by and share in this journey with us. Here we want to share Christ and hopefully help others along this narrow way.